Jump to main content

This is historical material “frozen in time”. The website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may not work.

Search form

Office of Science and Technology Policy Blog

Visit the OSTP Microsite

Get Updates

Designing a Citizen Science and Crowdsourcing Toolkit for the Federal Government

On November 21, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, in partnership with the Office of Personnel Management and the Federal Community of Practice on Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science, convened a workshop to kick off development of the Open Innovation Toolkit. The Toolkit, part of the Obama Administration's Second Open Government National Action Plan, will harness public ingenuity to help address scientific and societal challenges.
December 2, 2014 at 1:59 PM ET by Jenn Gustetic, Lea Shanley, Jay Benforado, and Arianne Miller

New Video Provides a Behind-the-Scenes Look at the First 3D-Printed Presidential Portraits

The White House releases a new behind-the-scenes video showing how the very first 3D-printed bust of a President was made.
December 2, 2014 at 1:25 PM ET by Stephanie Santoso

Entrepreneurs Wanted: The President’s Actions on Immigration

President Obama is committed to attracting the world’s best and brightest entrepreneurs to start the next great companies here in the US. That’s why creating a “startup visa” for foreign entrepreneurs is part of the President’s framework for commonsense immigration reform.
November 26, 2014 at 1:34 PM ET by Tom Kalil and Doug Rand

"Lantern Live" Mobile App Lights Way for Citizens Impacted by Disasters

DOE's newly released "Lantern Live" mobile app, part of the White House Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Initiative, allows users in disaster-affected areas to report on the status of local gas stations, find fuel, and easily look up power outage maps from local utilities.
November 21, 2014 at 1:21 PM ET by Brian Forde, Denice Ross and Derek Frempong

President Obama Honors America’s Top Scientists and Engineers, Launches New Steps to Cultivate Tomorrow’s Innovators

President Obama awards National Medals of Science and National Medals of Technology and Innovation to 19 of our nation’s top thinkers, discoverers, and innovators.
November 20, 2014 at 5:41 PM ET by Kumar Garg, Neekta Hamidi

Welcoming New Ideas: Climate Data and Information for Resilient Development

At the United Nations Climate Summit in September, President Obama announced a set of new initiatives aimed at strengthening global resilience to climate change, including a Public-Private Partnership on Climate Data and Information for Resilient Development.
November 19, 2014 at 4:26 PM ET by Kit Batten and Kelly Sims Gallagher

President Obama Honors Extraordinary Young Entrepreneurs at the White House

Yesterday, President Obama marked National Entrepreneurs’ Day by congratulating three student winners of the National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge in the Oval Office. The Challenge, which is supported by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, focuses on teaching entrepreneurship skills to high school students and has worked with more than 500,000 young people from low-income communities across the United States and around the world.
November 19, 2014 at 10:12 AM ET by Dan Correa

Exploring Opportunities for Robotics to Aid in Disease Outbreaks

Robots are working for us every day, in countless ways. At home, at work, and on the battlefield, robots are increasingly lifting the burdens of tasks that are dull, dirty, or dangerous.
November 17, 2014 at 4:35 PM ET by Randy Bryant

A Toolkit to Help Communities Respond to a Changing Climate

The Administration has developed the Climate Resilience Toolkit, a website that provides centralized, authoritative, easy-to-use information, tools, and best practices to help communities prepare for and boost their resilience to the impacts of climate change.
November 17, 2014 at 12:45 PM ET by Dr. John P. Holdren, Mike Boots, Lisa Monaco

Earth Observations Benefit Nations

Last week, the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO-XI) convened representatives from around the world. The intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO) is a collaborative, multi-national organization created to help connect Earth assessment tools around the world. As one of four permanent members of GEO's Executive Committee, the United States works through the domestic U.S. Group on Earth Observations to support investment and innovation in Earth observations.
November 17, 2014 at 11:46 AM ET by Timothy Stryker

Giving Americans Easier Access to Their Own Data

The Internal Revenue Service's new "Get Transcript" tool allows taxpayers improved access to their own personal tax data. This innovative information service is the latest in a series of "My Data Initiatives": Federal efforts to empower Americans with easy, secure, and useful access to their personal data.
November 12, 2014 at 10:23 AM ET by Nick Sinai and Rajive Mathur

Hardware Hacking for Disaster Response in Red Hook, Brooklyn

On October 10 – 11, technologists, entrepreneurs, and innovators across the public and private sectors participated in the first Civic Hardware Hackathon for Disaster Preparedness in support of the White House Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Initiative.
November 7, 2014 at 10:08 AM ET by Meredith Lee, Rafael Lemaitre, and Brian Forde

Celebrating Campus Leaders during National Entrepreneurship Month

In recognition of National Entrepreneurship Month, OSTP checked in with some of the University Innovation Fellows. The University Innovation Fellows program, launched last year by Epicenter, a national hub for entrepreneurship and engineering education funded by the National Science Foundation, supports student leaders working to stimulate entrepreneurial activity and collaboration on and across their campuses.
November 7, 2014 at 9:26 AM ET by Doug Rand

Statement by John P. Holdren on Approval of the IPCC's 5th Assessment Synthesis Report

On November 2, 2014, OSTP Director Dr. John P. Holdren issued a statement on the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Synthesis Report.
November 2, 2014 at 4:01 AM ET by

Celebrating Sustainable Aquaculture during National Seafood Month

The demand for safe and nutritious seafood is increasing, and the continued growth of properly managed aquaculture businesses can help satisfy this demand. Supporting our own homegrown aquaculture enterprises not only secures a reliable source of safe seafood, but also promotes sustainable businesses and economic development in rural, urban, and coastal communities, encourages healthy eating, and can even help the environment.
October 31, 2014 at 5:11 PM ET by Beth Kerttula and Becca Grimm

Keeping Peace Corps Volunteers Healthy, One Text at a Time

As we take steps to forge a 21st century Peace Corps, such as dramatically reducing the time it takes to complete a volunteer application from eight hours to less than one hour, we are also looking into ways to tap the ingenuity of volunteer developers to support our Peace Corps volunteers abroad.
October 31, 2014 at 12:16 PM ET by Carrie Hessler-Radelet and Brian Forde

Calling All Makers: Announcing the First-Ever White House 3D-Printed Ornament Challenge

For the first time ever, we’re inviting makers and innovators around the country to participate in the White House 3D Printed Ornament Challenge.
October 30, 2014 at 10:58 AM ET by Stephanie Santoso

Innovating to Fight Ebola

Earlier this month USAID launched Fighting Ebola: A Grand Challenge for Development, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Defense and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), to rally innovators, scientists, and experts to generate pioneering solutions to improve delivery of care and stem the spread of Ebola. Through this Challenge we will develop, fund and test PPE solutions. Our goal is to have solutions in the field in months, not years.
October 29, 2014 at 6:01 PM ET by Claudia Williams and Wendy Taylor

Empowering Entrepreneurial Labs: New Lab-Corps Program Accelerates Energy Technologies to Market

To help increase the rate at which national laboratory discoveries successfully transition into the private sector, the Energy Department today launched Lab-Corps, a new program that will train top lab researchers across the nation how to move high-impact national laboratory-invented technologies into the market.
October 29, 2014 at 3:41 PM ET by Tom Kalil and David Danielson

A Call to Action to Advance Climate Education and Literacy

Climate education and literacy are a critical part of this STEM skillset and are particularly important for building a 21st-century workforce, where tomorrow’s community leaders, city planners, and entrepreneurs have the information, knowledge, and training to make sound decisions and grow businesses in the context of a changing climate.
October 22, 2014 at 12:36 PM ET by Laura Petes and Sarah Hubbard

“Entrepreneurship is in the DNA of this Generation”: The President’s Innovation Town Hall

Last week, the President held a town hall meeting at a collaborative work space in Los Angeles to discuss a wide range of issues of core importance to entrepreneurs, especially entrepreneurs from the millenial generation.
October 20, 2014 at 9:23 AM ET by Doug Rand

Doing Diligence to Assess the Risks and Benefits of Life Sciences Gain-of-Function Research

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Department of Health and Human Services today announced that the U.S. Government is launching a deliberative process to assess the potential risks and benefits associated with a subset of life sciences research known as “gain-of-function” studies.
October 17, 2014 at 3:30 PM ET by

Leveling the Playing Field for All Children: Federal, State, and Local Efforts to Bridge the Word Gap

Research shows that during the first few years of life, a poor child hears roughly 30 million fewer total words than his or her more affluent peers. This is known as the “word gap,” and it can lead to disparities not just in vocabulary size, but also in school readiness, long-term educational and health outcomes, earnings, and family stability, even decades later.
October 16, 2014 at 8:49 AM ET by Maya Shankar

Bootstrapping a Solar System Civilization

In one of my meetings with NASA, a senior official with the space agency once observed, “Right now, the mass we use in space all comes from the Earth. We need to break that paradigm so that the mass we use in space comes from space.”
October 14, 2014 at 11:34 AM ET by Tom Kalil

Nanotechnologies Support National Progress

Today, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) released the Report to the President and Congress on the Fifth Assessment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). The report, PCAST’s fifth review of the NNI, concludes that the nanotechnology community is at an important turning point.
October 10, 2014 at 2:00 PM ET by Michael McQuade and Mark Gorenberg

First Lady’s Fashion Workshop Highlights Growing Role of Makers and New Technologies in the Creative Economy

On Wednesday, October 8, First Lady Michelle Obama hosted a Fashion and Education Workshop at the White House with 150 high school and college students.
October 10, 2014 at 9:52 AM ET by Stephanie Santoso

Big Data a Big Deal for First Recipients of Biomedical Big Data Grants

In March 2012, the Obama Administration launched the Big Data Research and Development Initiative. To catalyze new biomedical Big Data research, the Obama Administration and the National Institutes of Health launched the Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) initiative in April 2013. Today, NIH awarded a total of $32 million in new BD2K grants.
October 9, 2014 at 5:00 PM ET by Tom Kalil and Philip Bourne

Promoting Innovation and Protecting Privacy in the Classroom

Big data technologies have the potential to transform teaching, learning, and education. However, development and deployment of these technologies must carefully consider student privacy. The Department of Education, the Federal Trade Commission, and other Federal departments and agencies are working with non-governmental partners to ensure that personalized, digital learning does not come at the expense of individual protections.
October 9, 2014 at 2:18 PM ET by Dipayan Ghosh

The BRAIN Initiative and Grand Challenge Scholars

On September 30, OSTP hosted the White House BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Conference. The event was held to highlight recent progress and next steps on the President's BRAIN Initiative. Conference participants included representatives from academia, philanthropic foundations, companies, and several students from the National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenge Scholars Program. OSTP sat down with two of the Scholars to hear about their experiences at the conference.
October 9, 2014 at 9:13 AM ET by Erin Szulman

Celebrating the Federal STEM Workforce at the White House

Today the U.S. Office of Personal Management (OPM) and the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) welcomed more than 50 Federal innovators to the White House to celebrate the key contributions of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) professionals working in our Government. Every day, these STEM employees conduct scientific research; collect and analyze measurements of Earth; inform policy decisions; and carry out programs that help grow our Nation’s economy, boost national security, and protect public health and our environment.
October 8, 2014 at 11:51 AM ET by Jayne Morrow and Sydney Smith-Heimbrock